The invention relates to an installation for loading skiers on a chairlift having a continuously moving cable and chairs coupled to the cable by fixed grips.
Since the chair moves relatively rapidly along the loading area, the skiers have some difficulties to sit down properly. In detachable grip chairlifts, the chairs are stopped or moved at slow speed at the loading point, but such chairlifts are complicated and more expensive.
It has already been proposed to provide under the drive sheave a slight slope in the centreline of the cable, on which the skiers move towards the loading point, where they are taken over by the chair which arrives from behind them. The start of the skiers is controlled by light signals or barriers but the skiers speed changes with the snow conditions and the skiers capabilities.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,548,753 is disclosed a passenger loading installation having a conveyor by means of which the passengers are accelerated to a velocity substantially the same as that of the cable. After embarkment of the passengers the conveyor is stopped and the next passengers may step on the conveyor to be moved towards the loading point. The synchronization between the motions of the conveyor and the arrival of the chairs requires complicated control systems and the time necessary to accelerate and thereafter to stop the conveyor limits the transport capacity of the chairlift. The skiers can step on the conveyor only after the embarkment of the preceding skiers and the stopping of the conveyor.
Another loading system comprises a conveyor continuously moving at a speed less than the speed of the cable in order to transport the skiers at the loading point, where the skiers can sit down on the chair which arrives at the same time. The access to the conveyor is controlled by a gate, which is opened periodically in accordance with the passage of the chairs as soon as the preceding chair has crossed the conveyor. Such a system requires a perfect regular spacing of the chairs along the cable and an adjustment when the cable length changes to prevent arrival of skiers at the conveyor end before being taken over by the chair, or collision of the chair and the skiers.
The object of the present invention is to provide a loading system which improves the safety of the loading and at the same time the loading rate and transport capacity of the chairlift.